Chapter Twelve.
Easter Island.
The gale suddenly ceased during the night, but all hands remained on deck; for, the sea was still rolling mountains high and coming in occasionally over the broken bulwarks, causing Captain Lennard much anxiety about the boats, which, fortunately, the broken top hamper kept from being washed overboard.
In the morning it was quite calm again; but the poor old ship presented a piteous scene of desolation, with her broken sides, and her gay array of towering masts and spreading yards and spread of canvas all swept away.
Teddy could nearly have cried at the sorry sight; not reflecting that through the merciful care of a divine providence watching over all not a life had been lost.
With the daylight, Captain Lennard took a rapid review of their position.
He had caused a stout tarpaulin to be lashed over the engine-room hatch, thus preventing any more water from passing down into the hold there in any perceptible quantity; still, the carrying away of the bulwarks and chain-plates had strained the ship very much on the port side, and when the carpenter sounded the well at eight bells the ship was found to be leaking fast, having already a depth of two feet in her.
“Man the pumps!” cried the captain; when Uncle Jack lending a willing hand, the crew under his encouragement were soon working away steadily with a clink-clank, clink-clank, the water pouring out through the scuppers in a continuous stream.
However, on the well being sounded again presently, it was found to be flowing in equally steadily, having risen already six inches more in spite of all their pumping!
What was to be done?
The captain and Uncle Jack deliberated together, summoning the new third mate to assist their counsels; but, they could only arrive at one opinion.
The ship was sinking fast, and all hands knew it as well as they themselves; for, in addition to the damage done to the sides and bulwarks, the heavy propeller had aided the waves in wrenching away the rudder, which carried with it the greater portion of the stern-post.
“We must take to the boats,” said Captain Lennard. “Thank God, they are all right, and haven’t been washed away in the storm!”
Leaving the useless pumps, therefore, for it was of no avail fatiguing the men with the unnecessary exertion any longer, all the pumping in the world being idle to save the vessel, the hands were at once set to work clearing the boats and getting them over the side.
It was a ticklish job, the long-boat especially being very heavy, and there being no means, now they had lost their masts, of rigging a tackle aloft to hoist it off the chocks amidships.
Still, necessity teaches men alternatives in moments of great peril; so, now, knocking away the under fastenings of the boat by main force, the crew managed at last to get it free. Then, improvising rollers out of pieces of the broken topmast, they contrived by pulling and hauling and shoving, all working with a will together, to launch it over the side through the hole in the bulwarks.
The jolly-boat followed suit, an easier task; and then, the two being deemed sufficient to accommodate all on board, just sixty-one in number including the two passengers, Captain Lennard gave the order to provision them, telling the steward to bring out all the cabin stores for this purpose, there being now no further use for them on board the ship, and officers and men being entitled to share alike without distinction.
The captain himself, while this was being done, saw to the ship’s log and other papers, taking also out of the cabin his best chronometer and a chart or two, as well as a sextant and some mathematical instruments.
These preparations for departure, though, were abruptly cut short by a warning cry from Bill Summers, the boatswain.
“We’d better look sharp, sir,” he called out to Uncle Jack, who was busily engaged superintending the stowage of the provisions in the two boats. “The water is arising rapidly, and is now nearly up to the ’tween-decks!”
Uncle Jack passed on the word to the captain, who instantly came up the companion.
Seeing the truth of the boatswain’s statement from the deeper immersion of the ship since he had gone below, he at once ordered the men down into the boats, the passengers going first; then the foremast hands; and, lastly, the officers.
“Mr Althorp,” said the captain, “you will take charge of the jolly-boat and shove off as soon as she’s got her complement. I will command the long-boat myself.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” responded Uncle Jack, descending into the boat when she had as many in her as she could safely hold; when, shoving off from the ship’s side and rowing a few strokes, the men lay on their oars, remaining some twenty yards off so as to be out of the whirlpool or eddy that would be formed when the vessel presently foundered.
The long-boat now received its quota of passengers, all descending into it and seating themselves on the thwarts and in the bottom so as not to be in the way of those rowing, Captain Lennard waiting till the last to get into her.
Just as he got in, however, he suddenly remembered that he had forgotten a compass, and hastily climbed back on board to get it.
“Look sharp, Cap’en!” shouted Bill Summers from the bow as the ship gave a quiver all over. “She’s just about to founder.”
The captain was quick enough, racing back to the companion and down the stairs in two bounds, where, although the cabin was half full of water, he contrived to wrench away the “tell-tale” compass that swung over the saloon-table; and he was on the poop again with it in an instant.
The instrument, however, was heavy, but he had hard work to carry it with both hands; and he managed to get to the side with it, when bending down handed it to Bill Summers, who stood up in the bow of the boat to receive it.
At that instant, the ship gave a violent lurch, and some one sang out to shove off; when, the oars being dropped in the water, the boat was impelled some yards from the side, leaving Captain Lennard still on board.
“What, men, abandon your captain!” Teddy cried, his voice quivering with emotion. “You cowards, row back at once!”
“We can’t,” sang out the same voice that had before ordered the men to shove off.
Who it was no one noticed in the general flurry, nor knew afterwards; but, while the men were hesitating which course to adopt, Teddy, without saying another word, plunged overboard and swam back to the sinking Greenock, having no difficulty in getting up the side now for it was almost flush with the water.
“Come on board, sir!” said he jokingly, touching his forehead with his finger, his cap having been washed off as he dived.
“My poor boy!” cried Captain Lennard, overcome with emotion at the gallant lad’s devotion; “you have only sacrificed two lives instead of one! Why did you not stay in the boat?”
“Because,” began Teddy; but ere he could complete the sentence there was a violent rush of air upwards from the hold, and a loud explosion, the decks having burst.
At the same time, the ship made a deep bend forwards.
Then, her bows rose high in the air above the waves as the stern sank with a gurgling moan; and, the next moment, Teddy and Captain Lennard were drawn below the surface with the vessel as she foundered!
Teddy was nearly suffocated; but, holding his breath bravely, as Jupp had taught him, and striking downwards with all his force, he presently got his head above water, inhaling the delicious air of heaven, which he thought would never more have entered his nostrils.
When he came to himself, he saw the captain’s body floating face downwards amongst a lot of broken planks and other debris of the wreck, by some fragment of which he must have been struck as the Greenock foundered.
To swim forwards and seize poor Captain Lennard, turning him face upwards again and supporting his head above the water, was the work of a moment only with Teddy; and then, holding on to a piece of broken spar, he awaited the coming up of the launch, which, now that all danger was over from the eddy rowed up to the scene, when he and the captain were lifted on board—all hands enthusiastic about the courageous action of the little hero, and none more so than Captain Lennard when he recovered his consciousness.
“You have saved my life!” he said. “Had you not been close by to turn me over when I rose to the surface I should have been drowned before the boat could have come up. I will never forget it!”
Nor did he, as Teddy’s subsequent advancement showed; but, there was no time now for congratulation or passing compliments.
The peril of those preserved from the wreck was not yet over, for, they were thousands of miles away from land floating on the wide ocean!
Hailing the jolly-boat, Captain Lennard announced what he thought the proper course should be.
“The best place for us to make for now is Valparaiso,” he said; “and if we steer to the east-nor’-east we ought to fetch it in three weeks or so under sail; that is, if our provisions hold out so long.”
Uncle Jack approving, this course was adopted; and, day after day, the boats, setting their sails, which Bill Summers had not forgotten to place on board, made slow but steady progress towards the wished-for goal.
One morning, all were wakened up by the welcome cry of “Land ho!” from the look-out forwards in the bow of the long-boat, which kept a little ahead of the jolly-boat, although always reducing sail if she forged too much forward so as not to lose her.
A signal was made, therefore, telling the glad news to Uncle Jack and those with him; while the boat pressed onwards towards the spot where the hazy outline of a mountain could be dimly seen in the distance.
“That is not the American continent,” said Captain Lennard to the men, in order to allay any future disappointment that might be afterwards felt. “We are nearly a thousand miles off that yet. It must be Easter Island. That is the only land I know of hereabouts in the Pacific; and, although I have never visited the place myself, I have heard that the natives are friendly to strangers. At all events we’ll pay them a call; it will be a break in our long journey!”
Bye and bye the boats approached the shore and all landed, when a lot of copper-coloured savages came down to the beach waving branches of trees in sign of welcome.
The islanders had not much to eat; but Captain Lennard, seeing that their provisions were well-nigh expended, determined to stop here, while sending on Uncle Jack with a small party to Valparaiso to charter some vessel to come and fetch them all, the boats being so crowded that misfortune might await them all if they continued the voyage in such small craft.
For months and months all awaited in constant expectation Uncle Jack’s return; but, he came not, and they at length believed that he and those with him must have been lost in some hurricane that had sprung up off the Chilian coast, and so had never reached Valparaiso at all!
They had no fear of starvation, however, the islands abounding in poultry in a semi-wild state, which they had to hunt down for themselves; for the natives lent them no assistance. Indeed they were rather hostile after a time; although the Englishmen were too numerous for them to attack, especially as they were always on their guard against surprise.
In wandering over the island, which is only some thirty miles round, Teddy was surprised, like the others, by the numbers of stone obelisks, rudely carved into the semblance of human faces and statues, which could not possibly have been executed by the present inhabitants.
It is believed by geographers that Easter Island must have formed a portion of a vast Polynesian continent peopled by some kindred race to those that designed the colossal monuments of an extinct civilisation, now almost overgrown with vegetation, that are yet to be found as evidences of a past age amidst the forests of Central America.
One day, more than a year after Uncle Jack had left, and when they had almost given up all hope of ever seeing him again, or of being relieved from their island prison—the long-boat being dashed to pieces in the surf soon after he started—a schooner in full sail was discovered making for the island.
Presently, she came nearer and nearer.
Then she hove to, and a boat was seen to be lowered from her side, and shortly afterwards being pulled in to the shore.
A moment later, and Uncle Jack’s well-known face could be seen in the stern-sheets, a glad hurrah being raised by the shipwrecked men at the sight of him.
Soon, Uncle Jack landed, and he had a long tale to tell of the jolly-boat losing her sail, and being tossed about on the ocean till picked up by an American whaler, which first took a cruise down the South Seas, there detaining him many weary months before landing him at Sandy Point, in the Straits of Magellan, from whence he got finally to Valparaiso after awaiting a passage for weeks.
Arrived here, however, he at once got in communication with the British consul, and chartered a schooner to go to Easter Island and fetch his comrades.
Uncle Jack, too, mentioned that he had written home to the owners of the Greenock, telling of her loss and the safety of all hands on their temporary island home; and he had also sent a letter to Endleigh, he said, narrating all about Master Teddy’s adventures, and saying that he was safe and well.
Captain Lennard did not long delay the embarkation of his little band, who were glad enough to leave Easter Island; so, in a couple of weeks’ time all landed safely in Valparaiso, where they luckily caught the outgoing mail steamer as they arrived, and started off to England, rejoicing in their timely rescue and preservation from peril amid all the dangers of the deep.